


Pear-Shaped

by Calesvol



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Escape, Mutual Pining, Other, Post-Canon, Reunited and It Feels So Good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 22:27:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16752625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calesvol/pseuds/Calesvol
Summary: It's been months since Eddie's been united with Venom, and he'll stop at nothing to have his Other back.





	Pear-Shaped

Warning(s): G, some violence

* * *

He’d been staying on a straight path in the months following the Life Foundation’s collapse. Granted, even after the expose on the Foundation had gone through the wringer with the freelance editors he’d hired, news stations across the Seaborg had been vying for the right to publish that story, offering him exclusive rights and a whole host of excesses he didn’t want.

No, the Eddie Brock Report would hold full culpability of its own intellectual property, thank you.

That didn’t mean the fallout that followed wasn’t immense. Hell, it could be called nuclear.

Eddie had prepared himself for it, his own role and the barrage of phone calls and e-mails that followed, these same networks mewling at him for interviews and debates and a whole host of things a recluse such as himself didn’t care to indulge in. If they wanted their panels and experts to tear him down word for word, that was on them.

No, he had bigger fish to fry.

As his own, unaffiliated diggings had concluded, Stark Industries had recently acquired a new asset that was unprecedented. Or rather, assets. One that had been rumored to be slithering through the exhaust vents of the sewage system had been recently captured and neutralized, the docket he’d hacked into had claimed. Hook, line, and sinker.

He felt its presence when it’d been captured, the agony. While his story on the Life Foundation distracted both the public and private entities, he had to act.

Eddie had to somehow alleviate the terrible sense of loneliness that had pervaded his mind for months.

Being a journalist like him meant you had to know how to be crafty and resourceful. Setting up an interview was easy, and the next logical step in this arc involving the Life Foundation’s downfall. As Stark Industries had bought and repossessed its assets, it seemed like the next move. He could be generic enough, asking sanitized questions and ensuring any article published would only be good PR. While, internally, it would be to scope out the place and make a plan of attack to free the symbiote that mattered the most to him.

Tony Stark was as infamous as he was insufferable, Eddie able to hide his disdain while they say within the executive’s spacious and contemporary study, bleeding white as if it hid the grime at the feet of Stark Tower. And of course that was the case. It always was.

Dressed expensively in Armani and leaning back in his chair, the initial parts of the interview were cut and dry. Routine, completely standard. Even though it went against his code of ethics to do anything but report the bald truth, this had been his ticket in. And there might be other stints in the future. Kissing ass was sour work, but sometimes, it had to be done.

“So, uh—Mr. Stark. While this has all been real illuminatin’ and all, I think my readers are goin’ be to askin’: where’d all the symbiotes go? Y’know, the whole reason the Life Foundation had been taken out in the first place.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t ask that first thing, Brock,” Tony said over distractedly tapping at the screen of his smartphone, which seemed superfluous considering the technologies at his disposal. Aside from being haughty and rude, that was. He tapped an earpiece in the shell of his ear. “Hey, Maria, you mind giving the paparazzi a tour of the labs? I’m going to be busy.”

Figured. Men like Stark seemed to seldom do the dirty work unless there was an iota of glory involved, hence the Avengers.

Maria Hill’s heels clicked on the floor as she appeared in her asymmetrical pantsuit, probably much smarter in appearance than most personnel within the building. Stark didn’t bothered even saying some form of farewell before Eddie took her offered hand. “Maria Hill. I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr. Brock. Why don’t you come with me and we can get you squared away?”

“Say, y’mind if I record this? Nothin’ real confidential, but I figured if you’re talkin’ t’me y’wouldn’t be revealin’ a whole lot anyhow.”

Maria combed an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “Sure thing. Just as long as you follow lab protocol, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

They seemed in agreement as they headed towards the elevator at the far end of the office, away from a distracted Stark soon setting off on some other important endeavor. Whatever it was grotesquely rich corporatists did in their free time.

Once inside, Maria scanned her thumbprint on a keypad and selected the corresponding floor. “Now, did I hear right that you were actually the host of the symbiote, Mr. Brock?”

Eddie felt his blood curdle in his veins at the mention. Did they know? Was she on to his true intention? “Hm? Oh, yeah. Wide ride from start t’finish, but we put the bad guys away and I haven’t seen Venom since. Guessing he’s in alien heaven or wherever his type go off to.”

For the remainder of their descent to the subterranean labs, he felt jittery and clammy. Did he give any indication of feeling like an addict going through withdrawal? Of how his body had craved and craved Venom’s presence until it’d driven him mad at night, until he made himself into a fucking Trojan horse just to get it back?

His Other. His _darling_.

Speaking with Maria Hill was lulling her into a false sense of security, because if she suspected any foul play, she gave no indication of it. When the elevatored pinged at the arrival to their destination, immediately he was swarmed with a frenzy to find Venom, a feral want and need that almost made him lunge madly into the fray of lab coats and sterile hazmat suits behind planes of reinforced glass.

Then, there they were.

Eddie feigned a scholarly, pedestrian interest in them: taking pictures of the vividly colored symbiotes, taking scribbly notes with a stylus to his smartphone until he almost cracked the screen, complexion looking waxy and pale in his desperation beneath the florescent lighting. White, snow white. All before he felt like his knees would buckle at the first sight of something black.

Venom lay listlessly in its capsule, a bevy of scientists taking notes and preparing what looked like experiments the Life Foundation had tried conducting months before with gradual introductions of organisms to bond with. Except, Venom never responded.

Eddie felt his palms sweat and shake, smartphone ready to slip from sweaty palms. “It’s okay, baby, I’m here,” he murmured under his breath, Maria glancing at him oddly.

“Mr. Brock…?”

“I’m real sorry for this,” he murmured apologetically before swiftly dashing Maria’s skull into the glass and knocking her out upon impact, the woman crumpling to the ground as the scientists scattered. Heedless of whatever airborne toxins could be present, Eddie wormed his way onto the lab floor and sprinted towards Venom’s holding chamber, grunting as he capsized it without preemptive warning and the symbiote uttered a low whine at the interruption, but immediately relented when it realized who it was.

Eddie brought his foot down repeatedly until he cracked through the casing, enough for Venom to seep through and creep up his leg. The blond grinned in elation, heart throbbing gladly when he felt Venom merging with his person, whooping joyfully as they bonded together once more.

“Been too long, darlin’,” he murmured affectionately before sirens began blaring and security stormed the floor, amorphous limbs engulfing his own and whipping outwards in a whiplash that pinned several to a wall to part while Eddie ran through freely.

Another attempted to stun him through, but Venom hissed and snapped at them, lobbing back the capsules of tear gas launched into the room.

**_The windows, Eddie!_ **

“Mask?” he asked aloud, grinning.

**_Copy!_ **

Eddie broke into a headlong sprint before leaping, tucking his legs towards his chest as they broke through reinforced glass, shattering like shards of ice as the gulf of sky and the cityscape of Manhattan yawned cavernously before them and they plunged into the world below, knowing the hell that would inevitably follow.

He didn’t care.

He had his Other back and felt like he could take on the whole damn world.


End file.
